The Man in the Black Box
by mgmcol
Summary: An account of the War Doctor's bleak existence as the Time War rages.
1. I: The Dalek Furiogo

Dalek Furiogo was receiving new orders. Daleks were to prepare for changes to their cloud memory software. An upgrade. Daleks in Furiogo's section were to prepare for invasion and mass extermination of a Nestene-held planet of strategic importance. Daleks in another section were informed of Davros' birthday. Daleks were to prepare for a difficult upgrade. Furiogo was surprised by that instruction, no upgrade had ever been difficult for the Dalek race.

The message changed, but the change was not obviously relayed to Dalek Furiogo. Rather, Furiogo's memory of the message seemed different. Upon re-checking it, it appeared the message now said that Daleks were to prepare for disappointing information. The Doctor. The Time Lords.

The message changed again. Victory. The Time Lords. Gallifrey located.

Dalek Furiogo was receiving new memories, knowledge he found familiar, though completely new. The Daleks were at war with the Time Lords, again. Dalek Furiogo was to take part in a huge invasion fleet against the Nestene-held planet of Polymos.

Defeat. Scarro assaulted. Scarro evacua- Preliminary Assault on Gallifrey successful. Scarro well defended. Defeat in the Laegar sector. Laegar sector retrospectively discovered.

Now another change. It wasn't a huge invasion force – many sections had been reassigned months ago. Scarro has been saved. Now Dalek Furiogo was to lead an assault by a small force upon a town sitting directly above the Rift, so as to enable small craft, energy-harvesting vessels, to land safely and consume Rift energy. Furiogo would lead the assault by virtue of its rank, gained through glorious combat in the early days of the Time War. Except, that hadn't been the case until now. Dalek Furiogo hadn't fought in the time war, until now. Dalek Furiogo had never known the words Time War to mean what they now meant, until now. Dalek Furiogo had fought valiantly over a long career, but not, it seemed, until just a few moments ago.

It is of vital importance that Scarro be protected in all periods from any assault. Dalek craft shall defend the planet in all periods.

Dalek Furiogo was receiving new memories and new orders. Daleks should prepare for a new upgrade that will assist with the conversion of new memories and realities into coherent conscious thought. Dalek Furiogo has been selected for a scouting mission to the planet of Polymos. The Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords has now been raging for 17 seconds. Another message logged a much larger figure. From now on, messages will not contain such information.

Gallifrey must be located. A Time Lord agent has deleted its whereabouts from our cloud memory.

Update almost completed, and now Dalek Furiogo understood. It had been fighting this Time War since its first moments as a Dalek. The Time War was all that Furiogo had ever known. Old memories disappeared. Memories of conventional warfare against lesser foes became myth, and Daleks do not maintain myths.

Dalek Furiogo was to report to superiors and take part in an invasion of Polymos. The vehicle's offline system is doing its regular scan – for interest, the first use of the words Time War were 33 seconds ago. The Time War has been raging forever. There is nothing but the Time War. Yet… 34 seconds…

Dalek Furiogo's systems had finished updating. The update had presented some difficulty, but Furiogo would not and could not dwell upon challenging changes to reality.

Sometime later, as it experienced, Dalek Furiogo prepared to drop to the planet's surface as part of the small vanguard assault team. The town of Carbonic had roughly 30'000 Nestene duplicates, and would be easily destroyed.

The planet is under assault by the Time Lords now. They must know that the Daleks are harvesting energy here. The assault team will have to manually drop. The Warrior has been seen. The updated cloud memory system fed this to Furiogo as if it were entirely conceivable.

Dalek Furiogo was falling now, in an assault pod. He was leading a squad of 6, then a vanguard of three. Then he was alone. As the pod entered the planet's fumy atmosphere, he saw he was one of millions of invading Daleks. Then they were among thousands of mines, exploding all around them. The Time Lords had planted those in the sky in preparation. Furiogo's pod struck a mine, and the Dalek experienced the first microseconds of an explosion. Then the mines were gone, and most of the Daleks, and the Pod was only slightly damaged, and then intact. There had been no battle. But now there were Time Lords, out in force. The pod continued to fall, as Battle-Tardis' fought lower-space Dalek aircraft. Dalek Furiogo became aware that it was now the focus of operations in the War. Protect Furiogo were the new orders. Furiogo must reach the surface of Polymos.

The fumy atmosphere cleared up. The planet's name changed. Faliamora? Its inhabitants were peaceful and primitive. Furiogo had changed course, but had always been on this course. He was heading to a flatter landing area. The surface of the planet had shifted, but always been this way. The Rift remained.

Furiogo had been in the Pod for 94 seconds, and had received 190'393 updates on mission status in that time, though it only remembered the most recent one, and was aware of this only as a statistic. The most recent update informed Furiogo that the orders remained to secure the landing site and protect it from possible Gallifreyan intervention; that other units were protecting the mission elsewhere. The Rift could provide energy for a simultaneous assault on Gallifrey, across more time zones than previously attempted. Than ever attempted. Than would ever be attempted (pending future information or changes to this timeline).

100 metres above the surface now, of an idyllic landscape, with plush greenery and clear blue rivers, the Pod broke apart as planned and Dalek Furiogo descended to a sandy plateau jutting out of the plastic dessert wasteland. A plateau bisected by an unlikely stream flowing in two directions – away from the Rift.

As Furiogo landed, the scenery changed. Slave labourers ran from the site of the Dalek as it blasted its way through the floors of a functioning factory – ever descending to the base. Industrial kilns blazed all around Furiogo, but the factory soon disappeared, or parts of it. Now dilapidated. A mass grave marked by a few signposts and gravestones. Furiogo had landed at the Rift. Energy Harvesters would not be far behind. The area seemed protected. Even the Time vortex was being defended, Dalek Furiogo was assured.

How are we defending the Time Vortex? That Information is not available or conceivable for your operating system.

Something had obviously failed. A Tardis was materialising in front of him. The ruins of the factory were now those of a picturesque small town – Furiogo became aware of snow, and then forgot as the climate changed. A Battle waged all around them. Furiogo's connection to the network went down, and came back up again as the wooden shop fronts blazed in fire. The Dalek exterminated some running civilians, quite by instinct. 7 dead before the air filled with thick smoke. The light was blocked by the clouds from the burning planet surface. Battle Tardises and Dalek fighter pods shot at each other through the sky. Dalek Furiogo felt hot. The Tardis ahead was taking shape. A black box.

It knew that box. The Warrior. The one who had stayed away. The one who had been someone else.

The planet fell silent. The sky cleared. The place of the town was now a deserted plateau once more. A battle that had raged for a thousand years had now never raged. Dalek Furiogo felt a sense of abandonment. The energy harvesters were no longer coming to this place. Furiogo had one objective – exterminate the Warrior. It focused its lens on the door to the Black Box. Where there had once been glass windows set into the door frame, wooden panels had been hastily applied. Furiogo understood that the camouflage mechanism was broken on this model.

If not for the black wooden replacement panels, Furiogo would've seen the reflection, seen that it was time to turn around.

Instead, the Dalek only realised that there were two Tardises when the vehicle it had lived in for many years exploded around it. Dalek Furiogo was launched into the open air, landing in the plastic sand. The pain of the blast was immediately followed by the sting of the sand, the burning heat of the sun, the searing pain caused by the use of its large, naked, eye, half submerged also in the plastic sand. To breathe was hell, but Furiogo found itself doing it now, for the first time since first entering a vehicle. It was sheer pain even to move, for propelling itself with its limbs was not something the Dalek Furiogo had done since nursery. Those limbs were not suited for this, and they were very much out of practice.

Furiogo became vaguely aware of the surroundings having changed again. The air was thick once more. The old memories disappeared. The feed of new orders had stopped. Furiogo was no longer connected to the network. All it was aware of was the War, the endless War. The Daleks had always fought an endless war. The enemies had always hated them. But things had changed now. Things weren't right. Was this memory… correct? Why did Furiogo remember a town, where there was now a concrete yard. Why did it remember the friction of plastic sand, where now there was a concrete yard? This planet had been cursed by this war. Time here meant nothing. Time was merely another weapon. That's why they called it the Time War.

Dalek Furiogo went silently mad in the few seconds between being attacked and being executed.


	2. II: The Warrior

The Warrior stepped out of his Tardis. A weapon of almighty power weighing down his right arm. It looked just like a handgun from a cheap Sci-Fi film from 20th century Earth. He doubted that was coincidence. The Warrior forgot which had inspired the other. Its silvery finish did not, however, reflect the glare of the sun. It was dull, and dirty, and heavy.

The Warrior took aim at the rear of the Dalek. He had to destroy this thing to prevent it somehow utilising the Rift energy. Like all major battles in the Time War, institutional memory had long failed them in figuring out their original objectives. This battle had originally been an unrelated invasion by a Dalek fleet against a planet that was of strategic importance in some other war. If it was even worth fighting for in the context of a Time War, the Warrior wasn't aware of it. He knew, however, that what he didn't know far outweighed what he did. Ignorance was easier and more realistic than knowledge, in the Time War. There was no longer any room for wonder, intrigue and curiosity. It was tough enough to carry out orders, without trying to understand their reasoning, or their consequences.

The Dalek remained transfixed on the other Tardis – the one from earlier. The Warrior had navigated the Tardis here twice, so far, for this very manoeuvre. The battle in the upper atmosphere it seemed had been won, or else a stalemate accepted as a worthy outcome by either side had emerged. Here, it was just him and this one Dalek. He knew that the Dalek would likely be more aware than he of their situation; he was counting now on the Dalek's innate hunger for killing, to distract it from any information about the ploy that its commanders may now be sending it.

The weapon finished its drawn-out charging sequence (he would not risk fi this weapon inside the Tardis). The Warrior lifted his gun and shot the Dalek in the back, blowing its vehicle apart with a force one would not suspect from a weapon of that size.

The fumes in the air were thick. Distant factories were now ablaze. This planet wouldn't sustain life for long.

The Dalek creature clung to a pathetic existence on the cold concrete floor of the yard. The Warrior knew that, in this place, history had been re-written and distorted over and over. He doubted whether anyone living on this planet had ever known peace or comfort. The air smelled of oil.

The Dalek moaned. A spasm of the nerves, newly released from their containment and connections to the vehicle. The Warrior had heard such moans before. They usually gave the impression of regret or sadness, but the Warrior had enough experience of Daleks to know that this one would not express, indeed experience, such feelings, even now.

The weapon the Warrior had used on this Dalek was a Time War invention, designed to keep the Dalek alive but incapacitated, so that the wielder of the weapon might capture a Dalek and bring it back to headquarters, where grisly techniques were used to harvest any military intelligence. Attempts at hacking into the cloud memory system had all failed, so the Time Lords had turned to torturing prisoners of war from a race that was – when disconnected from their vehicles – lamer than a humanoid baby.

The Warrior cared not for such things. Not out of compassion, but the immediate satisfaction of a hateful urge, he crushed the Dalek beneath his left boot, screaming a harsh cry. The eyeball burst under his weight, and the visible signs of life were extinguished. The other Tardis had dematerialised by now, as he had done about 14 minutes ago, ignorant of whether the ploy had worked, not daring to look outside.

 _Victory,_ he thought, as he looked around the yard. Through gaps in the collapsing sandstone wall he could see the landscape of this planet, though he remembered from before. It had now always been this way: a sprawl of industrial chimneys, punctuated by shanty towns that the native slaves populated, ever in service to the Nestene.

But he had succeeded here, and now the Time Lords would unleash something terrifying. A device that would erase this planet – and the strategic Rift it hosted – from known existence. Such things were never perfect, some would remember. But none would ever again step foot here. Not in this time period, not… before.

Another Tardis materialised, and the commander emerged in some haste. The Master.


	3. III: The Master

"Warrior! Thank Time! I thought you had succumbed this time. I was told I would find you above, but, apparently not. I think some of them will get a bit worried if you loiter."

The Master addressed the Warrior as an old friend. Indeed, they were old friends. The Master addressed the Warrior as an old friend who was not also a recurrent nemesis, and someone whom the Master had not tried to kill many times. He addressed the Warrior, and relished in the Warrior. Even the moniker, "Warrior," was a glorious change for him. Some Time Lords were still using "Doctor", others "War Doctor," for they hoped that the war would end, and their Doctor would return. Hypocrites, of course: most Time Lords of repute had always disapproved of the Doctor's antics. To them, he was a rogue, a bad influence on the general population. Not so, now they needed his help. Not so, now that his years of adventure and interference were coming in so handy. The Warrior had all of the Doctor's cunning but none of his failings: mercy, pacifism, a cheap heart. He was a perfect soldier for the Time Lords, and his missions were generally of the highest importance.

Looking around, the Master couldn't quite see what had been so important about this lump of rock, or the single pathetic Dalek now dead under the Warrior's boot.

The one failing the Warrior had maintained in the Master's view was his eccentricity – but where once he had sported patchwork coats as if to please children, or grown his hair into a curly blond ball, now his eccentricity manifested itself as a dull individualism. The Master wore the Time War uniform of a Tardis Commander. Black mostly, with red trim at the Gallifreyan collar and at the sleeves. On his head, a hat with a wide brim, almost like a safari hat – also black with a red trim on the brim. Over his hearts, his rank illustrated twice. His only personal flair, a gold pocket watch, punctuated the black uniform, the watch resting in a customised waist pocket. The Warrior, by contrast, was dressed in dirty brown leathers, probably taken from the oldest, dankest corner of his extensive wardrobe, if not from an earthen charity shop.

In his present body, the Master towered over the Warrior. His thick red cloak was ill-fitting, and only reached as far as his thighs. Never had he possessed such a monstrous form. The Warrior was very short by comparison, and highly introverted. Nevertheless, the Master felt closer to the Warrior than he had ever felt to the Doctor, even in youth – or as he remembered it.

By contrast, the animosity the Warrior felt for the Master was brimming beneath the surface, raging along as though nothing had changed. But everything had changed, and they were comrades in arms now – to interact with the Master in a civil way was a necessity of duty, and the Warrior took his duty very seriously indeed.

There was some pause in his reply. The Master sensed the Warrior's gaze going through him to the horizon beyond. The gulf in time was enough for the _thud, thud, thud_ that haunted him to come to the forefront of his mind. The Warrior's eventual response was a mercy.

"Why should I not loiter? What is their plan?"

"Life Prevention. The planet shall remain, in the interest of conservation. No life will be able to live or enter it, however. Including the Daleks."

"Preservation? What are we preserving?"

The Master picked at the remains of the squashed Dalek. A small part of him was disappointed that the Time Lords would not be able to use this creature's knowledge. The greater part of him appreciated the sometimes irrational urges of the Warrior, and their manifestation in the needless execution of this pathetic dystrophied sack.

 _Thud, Thud, Thud._

"We are the guardians of the universe, Warrior, not its social workers. I have been sent to ensure that you have not been killed or regenerated into a less useful form, such as this lump of gloop. You're vaguely aware of the importance of not being gloop?"

The Master's blunt attempt to see if the Warrior was listening to the answer to his question, or just talking aloud to himself, was met with no response. His old friend and nemesis gave the distant smoggy landscape a tortured stare. The Master saw some Doctor creeping through in those eyes, as water liquid threatened to break down the cheeks. For the Master, a sharp thrill of anger rose within him: the Warrior was indulging that which should be kept down.

 _Thud, Thud, Thud._

"I congratulate you on your victory, and your continuing efficiency in pursuit of our cause. I will leave you now." He offered flatly, and turned on the spot to re-enter his vessel.

"Do you think this is victory, Master? This planet's living history-"

"The Daleks cannot use it to erase us. There are casualties in war, Warrior. You should now, you cause so many of them."

The Warrior switched his gaze to the Master. He seemed to snap out of it.

"You are correct, of course. Go about your business Master. I will not linger. If we do not meet again…"

"Then we will either be happy or dead. I know which is more likely. My Tardis has saved me countless times, and I have been lucky with my regenerations during this war." The Master's tone did not suggest that he was joking, as he had intended.

"Master." The Warrior retreated to his Tardis.

 _Thud, thud, thud._

It was the Master's turn now to indulge in the weaker emotions – the fear and anxiety brought on by his madness. He had never been a noble Time Lord, never put his life in danger for a cause that would chiefly benefit others. His misgivings about the Time War were in this vein. He saw nothing wrong with deleting a life before it had begun. Such was fluctuation in time, and time was ever in flux in the Time War.

 _Thud, thud, thud._

His actions might increase the chance of eventual Time Lord victory, and he was a Time Lord, true enough. But the Master was under no illusion: the Time Lords were not a forgiving people. He was a soldier in this war, but he had done no more or no less than others. His heroic feats were only as noteworthy as thousands if not millions of others undertaken for the same cause. In the beginning he had thought that the war might be his redemption. Now, he was quite sure, it would be nothing of the sort. A Time Lord victory would not see him welcomed back to Gallifrey with open arms, and he would not be pardoned for his supposed crimes.

 _Thud, thud, thud._

To dwell on this was torture. His instinct was to abandon the conflict entirely, strand his crew elsewhere, and leave them all guessing as to his whereabouts. He had done it before. This war did not leave shadows to hide in, however. It burned as bright as to reflect into every crevice and hovel in the universe. He couldn't run anywhere, in all likelihood.

 _Thud, thud, thud._

Soon he might try – he could sense it was required. But his melancholy was reinforced by a genuine wish to win the war, for even a negligible smidgen of redemption; so that some might say of him long after death, "The Master, a criminal bastard, but he fought for us in the War." His hatred of the Daleks, too, he had that. That was one thing for which he and the Doctor had always read from the same hymn sheet.

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

He was poised in the entryway to his Tardis. He hadn't realised that he had been in this position for so long. His First Officer was entreating him close the door so they could leave as quickly as possible. He knew his reputation wasn't for stability or even sanity, but he would've preferred to hide these moments. _Get back to reality, old man_ , he told himself. _You're no good to anyone as a depressed, hesitant, commander._

He knew the thoughts were futile anyway. The Master would find no peace in anonymity at one end of the universe or the other. They were merely part of a cyclical punishment he had always subjected himself to, something to balance out his manic instincts. The only thing new was the subject matter and the externality of his melancholia.

 _Thud, thud, thud._

"Yes, yes, I hear you! Fire the bitch up and get us out of here!"


	4. IV: Inside the Black Box

For the Warrior, the Black Box was a wretched vehicle. He closed the door behind him, the planet's history crumbling, and he was in the darkness of the Tardis.

A Tardis in name only. His Tardis, of course. But like him, all had changed, and her soul was probably ruined forever. A battleship by any other measure. He lit a flame from an antique lighter.

He stood on a sheet metal platform facing into a vast chamber. The flickering flame illuminated a one tiny portion of a giant cavernous space. Just inside the light, he could glimpse the end of the barrel of a huge Artillery weapon, aimed directly at him and the doorway. It gave shudders to think what monstrous weapons were resting in the darkness, around that one. The room had no lights, and the guns were all computer-operated. He had never seen the full arrangement through the naked eye, but he could picture it from the schematic diagrams. The guns were installed on platforms that could rotate around the edge of the room – so as to move different guns into line as necessary.

The dozens and dozens of weapons all pointed through the door of the TARDIS to the outside. They converted a flying souvenir – a symptom of the Doctor's lunacy – into a lethal battleship. What made him shudder further was a slight agoraphobia on his part – something he had never felt in his other bodies. The door frame, he knew, without daring to look, was set alone in the middle of the room, not on the edge against a wall as usual. This was to facilitate any shells or plasma cells missing the door on their way out. The cavernous space behind the doorframe was furnished with reinforced internally-armoured walls. Here he stood, on an unsteady platform, in the middle of a hateful abyss, created by titanic cannons of death, and a pathetic doorway to rest against.

He dared not turn to look behind the doorway. He had never been afraid of the dark, except as a child, or in those circumstances where the dark was genuinely full of terrors. He had grown up, and survived so many terrors, but still he dared not look into that space behind the doorway.

He hit the worn and battered of the two switches available to him on the very basic console to his left; the switch not encased in glass. Not dissimilar to a window washer's, the platform descended roughly, shuddering and lurching down an unlit shaft until the chamber disappeared from view. He stood in near-pitch blackness as the rays of light filtering through the closed outer doors thinned in his vision. The platform had lowered by about 10 metres when it stopped, in front of a sliding iron sheet door. A red bulb flicked on, offering some greeting.

"Lower Level" announced a voice from a speaker affixed directly to the sliding door, which struggled to open of its own accord. The Warrior laughed at himself. He laughed whenever he came to this door. He had designed and managed the construction of this layout for the Tardis, and this door, nor the platform, had ever operated smoothly. The shaft had never been correctly lit or decorated, and the speaker was one he had pulled from the miscellany in the bowels of the Tardis. It had belonged to a church, a very early piece of amplification technology, from a dreary sort of place. He laughed at his own pubescent joylessness, his determination not to enjoy anything.

 _What a prat I really am. A murderer though, as well, let's not forget that. I don't deserve the light and I don't enjoy it because I know that._

The Warrior entered the submarine-like den that was his bridge. Again, though it was capable of being well-lit and spacious, it was rather dim. Six of his crew stood to greet him, their Commander.

"Prepare to leave. Headquarters, any time you can possibly navigate us to." A familiar order. The Acting Bridge Commander, Lieutenant Olarta (the Tardis' 4th in command), nodded and grunted a barely recognisable response, and similarly communicated instructions to the other drivers. The familiar tones of the Tardis' engine starting up filled the bridge. A junior pilot had left the handbrake on, someone after his own heart. The Warrior was tired, and well in need of rest, so he left them to it.

"I will let you know if there is trouble." Olarta shouted to him as he was already out of the room's rear entrance.

"I will know anyway" he growled back. The corridor that greeted him here was not comforting, not so much as the tiny dark space he was leaving, but he wasn't in the mood to talk to people, either. He wasn't really in the mood for anything, except perhaps a pop-tart.

The network of routes through the Tardis from the Bridge were designed to confuse and disorientate, to prevent a Dalek invasion of the ship. He found himself thinking twice of which of the 7 paths to take. To navigate the maze of passages through the Tardis' current configuration required that the crew members remember a complex algorithm. At regular intervals, the corridors broke out into 8-way junctions. One or two wrong turns and you were lost in the labyrinth – going through a third junction would see you sucked into a holding chamber, some 80'000 cubic kilometres in size, with no gravitational force. They had lost 4 crew in the corridors since converting the craft. Three had been located in the holding chamber and retrieved. One, a travelling Gallifreyan foot soldier, had not been noticed as missing until after her company had been dropped off at their destination planet. In the complexities of the Time War, that had meant that years had passed until word had got to them that she was still on-board at all. They had found her corpse floating in the holding chamber – emaciated from starvation. Apparently, there was water in the chamber; a stream flowing through the air. The Warrior thought about how long a human might last in the chamber. Probably a couple of days at most. This craft had once served a great purpose in exploration. Now it served the very worst in war, and was capable of killing its own inhabitants without either the crew or the Tardis herself taking the time to notice.

At the 6th junction he took the 3rd corridor to the left and the 1st door on the left of that, which led him into his family's common room. A miniature grill had been placed atop what remained of a pink 1974 Mini Cooper, sans wheels. From the glove compartment he drew his diminishing supply of pop tarts. Only 300 packets left, and someone had stuck a pool cue in there. He groaned at the youthful spontaneity of his various relations, and instantly became suspicious. If they had found out that the glove compartment had been re-engineered to hold such a supply of pop-tarts, had they been helping themselves?

He plugged the miniature grill into an Earth extension cable that was connected to the Tardis' power grid by Paloraxian hair strands, and sat down to read some Traqi literature about military tactics in the driver's seat while his pop-tarts burned as he forgot about them. He didn't really care about military tactics anymore, but in the case of the Traqi, they were so comically terrible that books written about them were usually categorised under humour. The comic strip set during a hypothetical Sontaran-Traqi battle provided some much needed amusement. Pretty dark humour really though, given the death toll by the end.

He bit into hard black pop-tarts as he wandered up a steel spiral staircase to his quarters. His bedroom was tiny. Other commanders of Tardis battleships generally had luxurious villas to relax in and escape the horrors of the other 4 dimensions. A cheap and rewarding respite from the constant attrition. For the Warrior, refurbishment had been less than fun, and he didn't accept such luxuries on the basis that in his opinion the entire ship belonged to him – a fact that no Gallifreyan official had ever conceded – and he wasn't going to treat his bedroom like a prized personal space. His was thus asimple cell, not very different from those he had seen house Captains on earthen U-Boats. More and more he was treating it like a prized personal space, of course. He found it very difficult to be optimistic or even enthusiastic about the war, as others were. For many on-board – the ordinary non-Time Lord Gallifreyans especially, the war was all they had ever known.

Though his time travelling brain hadn't succumbed to the sort of personal revision of memory that others would, he knew that out there somewhere, a young Doctor was growing up in a world beset by the Time War.

Standard procedure directed officers to keep journals, in case time got a bit less linear. He sat down to dictate today's entry, but found that uninteresting and repetitive. His thoughts wandered to the Master, and his final words, predicting death.

He had met the Master at this stage of his life a few times, pondering his mortality. The Warrior had yet to meet a Master that had resolved these worries, or a later incarnation at all. The Warrior knew so many Time Lords whose final demise he had either witnessed or heard of during this war, only to meet an earlier version of them afterward. There was simply no way of avoiding it anymore.

Most Time Lord's feared that others knew of their demise and weren't telling them. In peacetime, in normal _time,_ that simply isn't a problem, you don't want to hear how you die. In wartime, in _this_ war _of_ time, death could come suddenly and cruelly, or you could just find yourself yanked out of existence.

In the case of the Master, he had heard nothing of death, but there was general agreement that no one had met an older Master, a greyer Master, than the towering fellow with jet black hair he had just met.

He was sure they said the same thing about him. In fact, despite there being very clear rules about such gossip, he actually knew that similar things were said about him: no-one had knowingly met a 2nd Warrior, or for that matter 9th Doctor, in the midst of the war.

Occasionally he heard tell of the 8th Doctor, ruining an operation somewhere or being seen offering safe passage for refugees. A bitterness rose in him at the thought of it. To him, the Warrior, the Doctor was a coward, not a conscientious objector as he claimed. One comfort was that he couldn't remember seeing himself through the Doctor's eyes, so he wouldn't have to confront the coward in this body.

He had hope for the Master though – perhaps the Time War simply ended in that Master's near future. The end of the Time War was a complete unknown from those fighting within it, but all wars have to end eventually. He couldn't see how this one would end, but he hoped it wasn't the last chapter of his own life.

Ageing once more, and uninspired by the dull chaos of the evermore confusing war, he found it unusually easy to empty his head of his thoughts, and allow himself to be taken by sleep. For sure, the nightmares that awaited him there were less severe than the nightmarish existence he was living through now. One thought returned, as it did every night. It angered and scared him, but he had forgotten it once more within moments. The mind plays great tricks on a tired soul.


End file.
